Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Inefficacious

In·ef′fi·ca′cious (·fĭ·kā′shŭs), a. [Pref. in- not + efficacious: cf. F. inefficace, L. inefficax.] Not efficacious; not having power to produce the effect desired; inadequate; incompetent; inefficient; impotent. Boyle.

The authority of Parliament must become inefficacious . . . to restrain the growth of disorders. Burke.

☞ Ineffectual, says Johnson, rather denotes an actual failure, and inefficacious an habitual impotence to any effect. But the distinction is not always observed, nor can it be; for we can not always know whether means are inefficacious till experiment has proved them ineffectual. Inefficacious is therefore sometimes synonymous with ineffectual.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.